(Pic: me feeding all 3 triplets simultaneously and you’ll also see a hospital grade breast pump in the background)

High achiever, meet motherhood (this isn’t pretty)

Meet 15-year-old me. She’s about to sit her GCSEs and genuinely believes the propaganda her teachers have been peddling about this being the most important moment in her life. The pressure’s on. She, and most of her classmates, are expected to get As across the board.

So far, so good. She gets the As, heads off to Oxford, then into work with the belief that life is about getting As across the board.

By 37, she’s pregnant, bought a house, won industry awards and is generally scoring As all over the show. She’s a cliché, and you’re welcome to roll your eyes here, but I wanted to be honest with you.

By 38, she’s mum to premature triplets and so far away from her life of As its unrecognisable. She’s failing at everything. She is free-falling in a world she doesn’t understand and wasn’t prepared for. She’s come a long way from high-performance.

She starts to agree with that critical mum guilt voice in her head – it’s right, she should be embarrassed by this paltry effort. She’s a joke. She’s not even fit to be a mum.

In school, in our careers, there is a clearly defined path to getting good at something. Do the qualification, get the promotion. Boom, boom, boom.

Guess what?

Motherhood ain’t like that.

Newborn motherhood is more like going into battle sleep-deprived and blindfolded with the expectation you’ll easily win. Failing feels demoralising, unexpected and we feel like we’re letting our kids down, which gives mum guilt some serious traction.

I realised if I wanted to protect the things that mattered most to me, if I really wanted to score As in those things that were truly aligned with my values, I had to get radically comfortable with failing elsewhere.

Every A costs an F

Last week, I asked you to think about what you actually want motherhood to look and feel like. What matters most to you? What do you want more of? If you missed it, go back and do your homework here.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: you cannot make room for the motherhood you want without pushing some things off your plate.

Designing your motherhood isn’t just about deciding what matters. It’s about deciding what doesn’t.

Every A we score in one area of motherhood costs us an F somewhere else. Because our time, energy and money are finite.

I can choose to get my A in nutrition and make home-cooked meals from scratch but it will cost me an F in the state of my kitchen.

If I want an A in looking after my mental health, I might have to take an F in volunteering to host Christmas or even a class party.

The Fs aren’t evidence that I’m a bad mother. They’re evidence that I’m making choices.

Over to you

So, right now, complete the following sentence:

I hereby give myself permission to fail at:

1

2

3

So that I have more time/money/energy for what really matters to me.

Please share these in the comments or DM me. I’d love to hear them.

Leave a comment

A few egs from me: matching outfits, having a tidy home or car, keeping on top of parenting trends, Instagram, WhatsApp group chats, expensive extracurricular clubs

Once you get started, you’ll find there are plenty of things you are willing to get an F in.

Fifteen-year-old me would have been horrified by all those Fs.

But 43-year-old me knows something she didn’t.

Success isn’t about getting As across the board. It’s about getting As in the things that actually matter to you. And that means knowing where you’re prepared to fail. Because if you don’t actively choose where you’re willing to fail you’re going to try and do it all and inevitably find you drop some balls, possibly even where it matters the most.

Success isn’t about getting As across the board. It’s about getting As in the things that actually matter to you.

And that means knowing where you’re prepared to fail.

Because if you don’t choose your Fs, life will choose them for you.

I stared this F*** Mum Guilt movement after reaching a low point with mum guilt and realising it wasn’t just a me problem, we all need to stand up and fight it together. Subscribe for weekly ammo.

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This is for you, Mama, if:

• you’re fed up with chasing everyone else’s of version of a “good mum”

• you want more time to spend on the things that matter to you as a family

• you’re done with the blueprint you were handed and ready to design your own.

(Pic: Me having a precious moment to think!)

Last week, I introduced you to Frankenmum, the impossible benchmark we stitch together from all the images and reels of perfect mums we see on social media. Frankenmum is the only mum having it all and being good at all of it simultaneously. And she ain’t real.

The truth is that trying to be her is costing us our health. Bupa found that 63% of mums had driven themselves to exhaustion trying to be a “supermum”. It’s a cruel game because whenever we feel like we might be getting things right, or at least OK-ish, the goalposts are moved.

Actually, the expectation both internally and externally that we should be able to have it all, do it all, and keep on top of it all without a hair out of place is, quite frankly, toxic. So we can’t let society tell us what a good mum looks like. Instead, we have to decide what our own version of good looks like. Honestly, that’s a lot of fun. Let me show you.

WTF is Motherhood Design?

Life design, you may have heard of. But when I was responding to the comments on last week’s article, a new phrase came to me: motherhood design.

If you don’t decide what matters, everything starts to matter. Homemade birthday cakes. The Montessori toys. Swimming lessons. Organic snacks. A tidy house. Fancy days out. Suddenly you’re trying to get As in subjects you never even chose.

Because if we don’t actively, consciously design the type of motherhood we want, we will get squeezed into somebody else’s mould (maybe your mother-in-law’s) and end up doing things in a way that creates friction and takes us out of alignment. I remember my mother-in-law was very keen that we should get the babies out of our bedroom and into their own room. She felt so strongly that we did it, but I regretted it. I hadn’t decided what I wanted, so somebody else’s certainty filled the gap.

And then we can get frustrated and resentful.

The truth is if we don’t design our motherhood, we don’t have the time to do the things that really matter to us and run ourselves ragged chasing everybody else’s version of “good mum”.

(Pic: I designed my motherhood with nature as a core value. A normal Sunday for my boys features jumping in holes on the beach - they never tire of it!)

How do we design motherhood?

Let’s invest a few minutes now in establishing the type of mum you want to be – not the one that last impressed you on social media, the one that’s most ‘on trend’ or the one that everyone else in the WhatsApp group looks up to, but the one that actually feels the most you. I’m talking about the one you want to spend the next couple of decades (at least) being.

1, Think about the memories you want to create

Take a deep breath and imagine your children taking you out for a birthday lunch when they are in their 20s. You all start reminiscing about their childhood. What is it that they remember?

Free write anything that comes to you.

• Is it the time you took them to the airport and didn’t tell them where you were going?

• Is it fighting over who had the last roast potato every Sunday after an epic roast?

• Is it the family karaoke nights the neighbours complained about?

It doesn’t matter how goofy it sounds, just set the clock for 2 minutes and write.

2, Look for the value

Now we take that memory and establish the value behind it. The value behind the airport memory might be travel or adventure; the value behind the feast might be cooking from scratch and eating together, the value behind the karaoke might be fun.

There is no wrong answer here, just go with it (and if you’re stuck ask me in the comments).

3, Design for that value

• What would her weekends look like?

• What type of family holidays would she go on?

• What type of childcare, education or after-school activities would she choose?

• What would she prioritise spending on?

• What family traditions might she start?

Write it down. This is just a thought exercise, so if a critical voice pipes up telling you all the reasons why these things would never work, just tell it to do one for now.

Whatever you wrote down should be leaving you with a smile on your face, these should be things you want to be doing.

You should now have a clearer idea of what to prioritise your very precious resources (time, money, energy) on and the direction you want to design in.

Next week we’ll be getting practical and looking at what we are going to give ourselves permission to ditch in order to make space for all this fun stuff. For this to be sustainable, it needs to be realistic.

I really would love to hear how you got on with that exercise. Please let me know in the comments. Has it inspired you to start a new family tradition?

Ps. I’m thinking of running this as a free live workshop, if you’d be interested drop me a message.

I'm Leila Green, founder of F*** Mum Guilt. I write about motherhood, identity, and how to stop chasing somebody else's version of a good mum.

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(pic: me at Ideas Fest delivering this idea to a tent full of mamas)

3 Generations of female entrepreneurs

When my grandma started her first business in East Africa in the 40s, no one told her she could have it all. She had to steal it and hold on to it like a rugby ball whilst everyone else tried to take it away from her.

When my mum co-founded businesses in the 80s and 90s, she was begrudgingly allowed a seat at the table, but only if she dressed and acted like the guys. She could be a second-in-command but not run the show.

Yet by the time my triplets were born, and I’d been running my book publishing business for 10 years, the message had changed to a beautiful, glittering mirage…You can have it all.

Now this is a handwritten invitation to mum guilt. Somewhere along the way, “You can have it all” stopped sounding like freedom and became an expectation.

Frankenmum shows us what “all” looks like

Frankenmum (intro’d in the clip below) is the fictitious benchmark we’ve stitched together from all the visual proof points our brains have clocked on social media

On one level, we know Frankenmum isn’t real. In fact, none of her component parts are real. They’re only a few curated and filmed seconds from one mum’s life.

But nonetheless, we compare our home to Interiors Mum’s, our abs to Fit Mum’s, our balance sheet to what Six-Figure Side-Hustle Mum just told us she made during naptime.

My mum didn’t grow up seeing an endless stream of interior-designed nurseries, post-natal bodies that bounce back instantly or women apparently earning their entire income during naptime. If she encountered a mum like that, she registered as the exception.

Now our brains are being convinced it’s the norm. And that we’re sub-par.

That’s the danger of Frankenmum.

Our brains bank all those reels as proof points of what “good” looks like, then arm mum guilt with a tonne of evidence that we’re just not good enough.

Mum guilt will parade these mums before us like a cheesy game show host and say, “Look, look what your family, your partner could have won.”

We have to admit that she looks pretty good.

“You should be more like her,” mum guilt adds.

Instantly, whatever we were feeling proud of doesn’t feel anywhere near good enough anymore.

We sigh and say, “Yeah, I wish I was a bit more like her. I wish I knew how she did it.”

This leaves us deflated and demoralised.

When possibility becomes pressure

The problem is not just that Frankenmum is showing us the infinite and impossible scope of what “having it all” means from a successful career to a pretty nursery to organic nutritious meals to hot date nights. It’s not even that what she illustrates is too much work for any individual mum to realistically squeeze into one day/life.

The real problem is that she does it all so damn perfectly.

I was recently on Mums Mean Business podcast discussing the expectations Millennial mums carry into motherhood.

We were raised with a huge expansion of possibilities: get the education, build the career, earn your own money, have the family, travel, stay fit, have a beautiful home, maintain your friendships, keep the relationship alive.

The truth we face is that we cannot even get it all done, let alone be perfect at it.

That was something I had to radically accept in the early days of triplet motherhood.

Accepting I couldn’t do it all

You would not believe the workload involved in looking after triplet babies: the laundry, the cot changing, the nappy changing, the bottle sterilising, the feeding, the winding, not to mention how long it takes to get each of them to sleep. It’s more than one person can fit in a day.

It hurt me to accept I that I couldn’t do it all, let alone do it all of it well. I was barely surviving. I thought I’d be more on top of it all. I was used to being good at things, but triplet motherhood was something else.

I remember going on Instagram when my babies were little and thinking, “Am I the only one getting this wrong? Am I the only one whose kids/home/holidays/car etc. doesn’t look like that?” Even the other triplet mums managed to get their babies in matchy outfits without any of the spewing up. How???

We cannot have it all. We cannot be it all. If you disagree, please leave a comment. I’m here for the conversation.

But we can intentionally design a motherhood that works for us, makes us happy and aligns with our own values. Not your mother-in-law’s. Not your friends’. Not an influencer’s. Yours.

I’ll be digging into this next week. I’ll help you get hyper-focussed on exactly what matters, what you want to prioritise and what you’re happy to totally drop (and let’s be honest taking the pressure off and ditching a few things feels liberating). Do you already know what you want to ditch?

What’s one area where you’re DONE trying to be a perfect mum?

Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading. I write unapologetically about breaking up with mum guilt. Subscribe to do motherhood on your terms.

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After two heart- and soul-breaking miscarriages that honestly nearly broke me, in 2022 I fell naturally pregnant again. At the first scan, they told me they couldn’t see anything and sent me home with a terrifying leaflet about ectopic pregnancies. At the second scan, they could see something only they saw two blobs. Twins. I still remember the tears in my husband’s eyes as we tried to process that, after two losses, we had two lives on their way.

The 12-week scan was a big deal. Heartbeats. We’d never got heartbeats before. My husband had Covid, so he waited in the car park with our dog as I bravely sat in the waiting room, watching women rush out in tears, chased by their partners helplessly trying to console them. I just tried to concentrate on my breathing. Just one breath in. Just one breath out.

I kept this up whilst I was on the examination table. I closed my eyes. Just one breath in. Just one breath out. I’d learned it’s best to block out the conversations between medical colleagues rather than try to interpret them. I’d been here before.

Then the sonographer called her boss over. Something was up. I tried harder to concentrate on my breath. “Try to relax,” they said.

Finally, the consultant came over, and after a while, flipped the screen around so I could see it. Whatever I was supposed to interpret from the grayscale swoosh was lost on me.

“We have heartbeats, but there are three.”

I honestly don’t know what happened next; I think I blacked out. I just remember staring up at the ceiling tiles whilst the sonographer repeatedly told me, “It’s time to put your knickers on now.”

Pregnancy after you’ve lost babies is terrifying. You cannot enjoy it as you are painfully aware that things can go wrong. Every scan could be your last. But amazingly, I made it through to 33 weeks + 5 days, which is pretty much as far as you can go with triplets.

(Pic: Frankie being placed on me for a moment)

I had a planned C-section in a room with 28 medics. I could stroke Rafa’s cheeks through the porthole window of his incubator as they wheeled him past, Frankie was placed on my chest for a moment, and then all 3 were whisked off to NICU. They needed oxygen support, and basically had not worked out how to live yet and did not appreciate being yanked out of their mum, thank you very much!

The next 5 weeks were a blur of hospital visits. Three doctors’ rounds every morning full of jargon and acronyms that meant nothing to me. I was treated like an idiot and wanted to say, “I do have an Oxford degree, you know!”. I had to clue myself up, advocate and make decisions on behalf of my boys. They fought like warriors. I knew they would.

(Pic: Me visiting Jerry in NICU, which required a spare wheelchair and a spare member of staff to take me from the maternity ward to NICU so didn’t happen enough)

Enter mum guilt

After 4 weeks, two of my triplets were ready to be discharged, but poor Jerry hadn’t even regained his birth weight. In fact, he’d slipped off the bottom of the growth chart (htf do negative percentiles work). They’d tried every combo of milks and meds to keep him fed. Nothing worked. It was getting desperate.

The hardest part about this time was deciding who needed me most: the two prem and poorly babies at home who needed feeding every 3 hours and were still seriously distressed about their early arrival or the one who was struggling to grow, the one who wasn’t sure if he wanted to be here with us in this life, but also the one being looked after by teams of specialists around the clock.

I’m welling up writing about this now because it’s an impossible choice for any mum. Whoever I was with, I felt guilty about not being with the other(s). If you’d have told me before I had my babies that there would ever be a situation where my baby would be so poorly, and I wouldn’t be keeping vigil day and night, I wouldn’t have believed you, but I couldn’t do it.

There was never enough mummy to go around

The mum guilt tormented me. I felt horrendous. Whatever choice I made wasn’t good enough. Then one day, whilst I was in hospital holding Jerry, he turned blue in my arms. I hit the panic button, and the room was instantly filled with a pack of medics barking questions at me. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even nod. I couldn’t breathe. (I needed to take a break from writing this bit because I was crying. Deep breath). I’ve never actually been paralysed by terror before, but that, that was it.

So how could I leave him? What if I hadn’t been there to hit the panic button? How long would it have taken a nurse to notice? Why weren’t his monitors alarming? How could I do this motherhood? I couldn’t even keep all my babies safe and alive.

I was tormented by mum guilt. It toyed with me like a cat playing with a mouse that’s more fun half-alive than dead. It was an unwinnable situation. I could be at the hospital with Jerry, or at home with Rafa and Frankie.

And honestly, mum guilt just grew its campaign against me as the weeks went on, and it became evident I just couldn’t keep on top of the demands of three babies as one mummy. At my lowest point, I felt I would never be good enough. They deserved better. I even told a GP I felt like I was failing them. Then, after one particularly low point, which I talk about at the very beginning of my TedX here, I fought back. I realised that it was mum guilt or me, and my kids needed me strong.

The mum guilt wasn’t helping. It didn’t give me the third boob I needed to feed all my babies at once. It just made me feel shit about doing my best. This bully had silently crept in the back door of my family home and had to go.

An amnesty became movement

It took a while to get brave enough to talk about it with other mums, but it turns out mum guilt is making a lot of us feel shit about doing our best. So I called mums together for a mum guilt amnesty. It was inspired by a knife amnesty box in my London neighbourhood. The amnesty box outside the police station was getting something dangerous out of our homes, out of our communities. I wanted to do the same.

Even now, the idea sounds whacky to me, but I did it. 70 mums signed up to get their guilt off their chest. I ended the session with a burning bowl ceremony where I put bits of paper with all the things mums were feeling guilty about in a ceremonial fire. I normally tone down my woo, but I was feeling called to set light to it!

That’s how I accidentally started the F*** Mum Guilt Movement and why it means so much to me. Why I’ve been writing and hosting events in snatches of stolen time while my babies slept, when even my husband questioned why I was putting so much into something I wasn’t getting paid for, and wouldn’t I rather just have a rest?

No, I can’t. This is burning within me. Mum guilt is making 95% of mums miserable. It’s time to stand up and fight back.

Can one person change a culture where mum guilt has become almost inevitable?

No. But I can bring us together. I can hand out the words and tools to fight it with, and we can stand strong, shoulder to shoulder, and say, “No, guilt, you are not welcome here. Get away from me and my family.”

If you’re ready to stand with us, join the movement by subscribing below.

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Sure, I’ve always wanted to take the F*** Mum Guilt message to the festival stage, and I’m much more sequins than lecture theatre, but the timing was terrible. It was the boys’ first week of school. It was the first time they’ve been separated (which for triplets is honestly a bigger deal than starting school).

Then a coach kicked me up the backside, and I I compromised, as mums do: I’d apply, but only for a 10-minute session so I’d be back by pick-up.

The universe served me an upgrade: a 45 minute slot. Shit. I had to make it happen. Then I got invited up onto another stage too.

FMG Field Trip

(Pic: Me being interviewed for a live podcast broadcast on the big screen)

So last Thursday I got the boys ready in their cute new uniform then hefted an oversize tote full of FMG T-shirts to a field in the middle of nowhere.

I’d barely had time to find the coffee cart before I was interviewed live and beamed around the festival on a massive screen.

“What do mums feel guilty about?” the male interviewer asked me.

“Everything in the gap between the mum they expected to be or the one everyone else expected them to be and their reality.”

He was genuinely intrigued and we had a good chat about the challenges mums who run business have.

But I was only just getting started.

I’ll give you the low-down on what I actually spoke on the main stage in another post. Today, I want to share the three things I took away from Ideas Fest. Spoiler alert: none of them are about me.

3 Lessons from the Field

1, There’s a huge appetite to talk about mum guilt.

Mums saw me (and some of you) walking around the festival in our T-shirts and started opening up. In the toilet queue. By the stage. Passing in the field. Some just looked at the shirt and said, “I’m in.”

You could feel the pent-up demand for real, BS-free conversations about what we’re carrying as mums, and the impossible expectations we’re done with. Sometimes it just takes someone to start the conversation.

In the talk, I got everyone to decide where they were going to release some of the expectation pressure, and give themselves permission to fail. Then I got them to turn to the mum next to them and talk about it. Honestly, I couldn’t shut them up. I kept glancing between my watch and the organiser, but I didn’t want to stop them.

2, Allies can surprise

As I was getting ready, a dad in the front row asked if he could have a T-shirt. He squeezed into a size 16 looking very muscle beach, but sat attentively, engaged in the activities, got up and danced to Beyoncé with us and at the end asked for some resources for his wife.

Turns out the F*** Mum Guilt movement doesn’t only need mums.

(Pic: A whole bunch of mums dancing on the stage, living their best lives)

3, The ripple effect is real

My absolute favourite photo from Ideas Fest isn’t of me, and it wasn’t even taken at Ideas Fest.

As I was backstage by the fence, getting ready to go on, a mum who had already left the festival spotted the FMG T-shirts from the car park and came over. She said she really resonated with the message and wished she could stay for my talk, but she had to go and pick up her daughter.

“I get it,” I said. “Have a T-shirt.”

And I pushed one through the fence to her.

Later, I wondered who she was and cursed myself for not at least getting a name. A few days later she popped up on my LinkedIn feed in the FMG T-shirt having completed a Parkrun.

(pic: The inspiring Michelle Norton-Hughes at her Parkrun. Sidenote: turns out she’s a specialist in women’s pelvic health)

Not only had she taken some guilt-free time to exercise, but she’d sent out a signal to other mums, that she gets it, that she’s here to talk and ended up having a meaningful conversation with another mum at the run who was struggling that day.

That’s the whole point.

The F*** Mum Guilt message spreading mum to mum – at the school gate, in workplaces, WhatsApp groups, Parkruns, wherever one mum can look at another and say, “Me too.” Or, even if she’s not ready to say it out loud yet, at least feel a little less alone.

If you’re already here, you’re already part of it. This week, tell one mum friend about the F*** Mum Guilt movement, maybe even forward this on to her.

Much love,

Leila x

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(pic: Jerry, Frankie and Rafa looking like they are in a police line-up in their hastily-bought school uniform ready for their first day)

Mums are traditionally crap at acknowledging and celebrating their achievements. Which is a shame because if we don’t, often no one will. And today, I’m going all out. It’s the big one. The triplets finally started school. Only for a few hours, obvs. But still, it’s a new era.

The staff handed out care packages to the parents containing a packet of tissues, a tea bag and a cookie. Whilst other parents hugged teary eyes, Jerry went straight in and didn’t even want a kiss goodbye, my other two went merrily in (keen to get dry - we’d been waiting outside in the pouring rain for 10 minutes at this point) and I gave my husband a high 5 and yelled, “We did it! We got through the last 4 years, actually 5 if you include the high-risk pregnancy.”

Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you how many times we’ve been in hospital, or ambulances, how many nights of feeding 3 babies every 3 hours we did, how many toddler tantrums I’ve dealt with or how many fights I’ve broken up.

But we made it. So please Mama, raise your coffee.

I feel free. Lighter. A whole world of possibilities has opened up for me.

For the last few years, any work I’ve done has been precariously balanced around patchy childcare. Now I finally have the time I’ve craved to grow this F*** Mum Guilt movement.

And I’m wasting no time. Tomorrow I’m on stage at Ideas Fest.

If you’d have told me, when I gave birth, what motherhood would cost me in terms of my career, my finances, my health (mental and physical), my marriage, my relationships, I just wouldn’t have believed you.

Mums are paying “the motherhood penalty” in all areas of our lives from sleep, to wealth to health. And no one seems to notice. A lot of the work we do is invisible, expected and not even appreciated, so let’s just take a f***ing moment right now and celebrate ourselves.

Just take a moment to think about all you’ve overcome, the challenges, the battles, the tantrums, the sleepless nights. And still you rise up ready for the next one, and make sure everyone’s got clean pants while you’re at it.

So this one is for you. I’m raising my coffee to you and all you do.

And the award goes to…

If motherhood had its own awards ceremony, what would you win? I’m looking for entrants in these categories:

🏆Most Interrupted Mum (for the mum who literally can’t finish a sentence)

🏆Outstanding Contribution to Finding Things That Are Right In Front of Everyone Else

🏆Best Supporting Actress in a Three-Year-Old’s Drama

What else should I include? Let me know in the comments, and what would you win?

You should count yourself out.

The timing’s not right.

You’re not ready for that. Look at the other people doing it.

Don’t post that. It’s embarrassing.

You’re selfish.

A good mum wouldn’t.

If I’d have listened to any of this noise in my head I wouldn’t currently be preparing for my first ever festival appearance. Now, I’ve always wanted to take the F*** Mum Guilt message to the festival stage. There is something about me that’s more glitter and dancing than boardroom, probably stemming from my early days as a Latin and Ballroom dancer (long before it was cool).

So when a coach encouraged me to apply to the Glastonbury for Entrepreneurs (Ideas Fest), I was hyped but then at the same time, mum guilt and Imposter Syndrome got together to bully me out of it. To be completely honest, the timing isn’t great. It’s on the triplets’ fourth ever day of school. It’s the first time they’ve been split up, they’ll be in different classrooms. There’s so much change and upheaval and Mummy will be on stage rather than doing pick up.

So my two adversaries have a lot to work with.

(Picture: Me outside the Radcliffe Camera, an iconic circular Oxford University library where I spent many evenings)

I’m no stranger to Imposter Syndrome

I was almost crippled with it when I left my home in Croydon to study English Literature at Oxford University. We ate dinner every night in the banquet hall they used in the Harry Potter films. I was one of a tiny minority of people who weren’t white, many of whom had the sort of public school education that springboards you into the. I was undoubtedly, a fish out of water. I had this feeling that I would get “found out” as a fraud.

But it’s not the same now I’m a mum. It used to be “You’re not good enough” and now it’s categorically, “You shouldn’t even be here” “You shouldn’t even want that” “How could you even think of doing that right now” “You’re a bad mum”.

Imposter Syndrome makes me question whether I am good enough to take the opportunity. Mum guilt makes me question whether I’m allowed to want the opportunity at all. It turns ambition itself into evidence against me. Because if I really were a “good mum”, surely I’d want to be at the school gates instead of on stage?

And yes, I came close to pulling out. Especially when I’ve had six weeks of no childcare so no time to prepare for my festival debut. You can imagine how badly my inner critics have told me I’m going to bomb…

But thankfully I have a framework to turn to when Imposter Syndrome hits, one I created when I was asked to be a co-author of Stacey Dooley’s motherhood book, Dear Minnie. I badly wanted the gig but also feared I’d royally f*** it up, which is how I’m feeling now.

JFDI

J — Just Breathe & Reset
Get out of the spiral before you try to reason with it. I’m going to pause on the “You can’t do this, this is too much, you’re spread too thin” thinking.

F — Flip the Script
Challenge what the imposter voice is telling you and reframe it. OK, I may not be ready but I can have a good time and waiting until I’m ready could mean I never do this.

D — Draw on Your Support System
Use the people around you rather than sitting alone with the doubt. I can reach out to others who have done something similar and share my worries.

I — Imagine the Possibilities
Shift your attention from what if I fail / embarrass myself / shouldn’t be doing this? to what might happen if it goes well. I can imagine the mums I’ll meet, the conversations we’ll have and inviting them all up on stage to dance to Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)”.

God, I really needed to hear that.

If you’re an entrepreneur, solopreneur or interested in that world, come along. I’d love some friendly faces in the crowd/dancing on stage with me.

(Picture: My flier for Ideas Fest)

And if your own inner critics are currently telling you that you’re not good enough, the timing isn’t right or a good mum wouldn’t, perhaps you don’t need to believe them. Perhaps you just need to JFDI.

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Before September ramps everything back up, here’s your chance to design things differently. Yes, Mama, you have the power to design your own life and choose what you want to say “No” to for the rest of the year.

After six weeks of chaos, I’m craving structure again. But there’s something I don’t want back: the stress.

Chronic mum stress has become wallpaper.

I wrote about this back in May after going to a yoga class with a sound bath. I checked my Garmin afterwards and my stress levels had dropped by 70% in an hour.

The shocking bit wasn’t the drop. It was that I hadn’t felt particularly stressed beforehand. Nothing dramatic had happened. It was just a normal day looking after three small boys. Yet I must have been experiencing a high level of stress to begin with for that kind of drop to even be possible.

It freaked me out a bit and so I looked into motherhood and chronic stress. I’ll be honest with you, the reading ain’t pretty.

So many of us are functioning, getting everything done, meeting everyone’s expectations (making sure the school uniform/lunchbox/schoolbag with matching pencil case etc. is bought) whilst in a state of dangerously high stress. We never get a break from it. We don’t have in-built circuit-breakers, we’re expected to deal with stress upon stress upon stress. Until that fateful day when we just can’t take it any more, our capacity is well and truly breached and we reach burnout.

The Motherhood Index found that 93% of mums report experiencing burnout.

Summer has revealed that wallpaper

Over summer, we’ve slowed down. We’ve taken a break (of sorts). We’ve had more time as a family. It’s a step change.

We’ve taken our foot off the gas, which gives us a rare opportunity to actually see that wallpaper, to take a step back, like we’re a judge on Interior Design Masters (confession: Michelle Ogundehin is my style icon) and look critically at it and ask: is this working? Is this too much? Could this be designed better?

So how do we stop the stress becoming wallpaper again?

Well, I’ll be honest with you, we are starting close to home because not all the mum stress is external. Some of it we create ourselves through expectations.

We set the bar impossibly high for what we think we should be able to achieve in all areas from the state of our home/relationship/finances/bodies etc. and then go like the clappers trying to make our actual lives match the expectations we’ve set for them.

Of course we’re stressed.

One of the steps of breaking up with mum guilt is: acceptance, not expectation.

So this September, instead of just asking:

“What’s stressing me out?”

Go one step further and ask:

“What’s the expectation behind that stress?”

I’m writing this in the lounge surrounded by Magna Tile shrapnel, bits of train track and, for good measure, a face-planted Scooby Doo. It’s not the mess that causes the stress, it’s the pressure I put on myself to keep the lounge tidy at all times.

So rather than pushing myself harder to meet the expectation, wouldn’t it be kinder to shift the expectation?

There will be plenty of stress this September I can’t control. I don’t need to add another layer by demanding the impossible of myself.

Please, Mama, be kind to yourself x

About me: I’m Leila, triplet mum, TEDx speaker and founder of the F*** Mum Guilt Movement. This is a space for questioning the bullshit, rebelling against impossible expectations and making motherhood a happier place to be. Subscribe for a weekly dose of mama empowerment.

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(pic: Frankie at a Rockpool Safari organised by a local charity)

We slow down. We notice. But then, so often, we forget all that feedback and plough on. Not this time.

Every summer, life changes gear. The routines shift. We spend more time as a family. We spend more time outside.

And while I was really anxious about this back in June (I really didn’t want to let go of the usual term-time structure) I think there’s something really useful about it: data. You get to “try on” living a bit differently and see what the feedback is.

The problem is that most of us run the experiment and then don’t bother looking at the results. What a waste of data!

“Oh that was nice,” we say and then plough on back into our old routine as if it never happened. Or, in my case last year, “That was hell, let’s not ever do that again.”

What a missed learning opportunity.

Last year, when I asked myself what summer had been trying to tell me, I realised I was happier spending less time online. I wanted more time outdoors and more time with old friends. Nothing ground-breaking. I bet you can relate.

This year?

The message has been considerably less subtle.

This is Summer calling, I have a message for you:

1, Slow. The Fuck. Down. Mama.

I have triplets.

I cannot keep setting timelines for myself based on what I could achieve if I didn’t have three four-year-old boys and all the logistical, emotional, and physical work that comes with them. This morning I was shouting, "Don’t play football with the garlic boys, please!” before breakfast.

Yet the over-achieving part of my brain has failed to recalibrate in motherhood. I put so much pressure on myself to do and be more, but wouldn’t it be kinder to slow down and cut myself some slack? I’m done doing motherhood as if I was being chased by a tiger.

2, Stop comparing.

I look at what other people are building. How often they’re posting. How quickly their brands and Substacks are growing.

And then somehow my brain mistakes their capacity for mine. Why place that expectation on myself?

So I need to remind myself of one of the steps of breaking up with mum guilt: choose compassion not comparison.

3, Get off Instagram.

It started as just a little break whilst I was camping but if I’m being honest, I don’t really want to go back on.

I know this is not what my publishers will want to hear because I’m going to be promoting a book but when I take a step back it’s clear that Instagram triggers more fear-based emotions in me than fun-based emotions right now. So for the moment, the kindest thing I can do is avoid it. God that feels good to admit.

4, Stop multi-tasking.

Being pulled in two different directions is making me miserable.

I’m trying to post while my kids are running around. Phoning the bank while simultaneously breaking up a fight. Always ticking two things off the to-do list at once, or am I?

One thing summer has given me is much clearer boundaries. I’ve had days, weeks even when I’ve decided I’m offline. The out of office is on I’ve set clear expectations, pushed back big pieces of work until September.

When I’m working, I want to work. When I’m with the boys, I want to be with the boys. And when I’m off, I want to actually be off – not an unhealthy hybrid.

5, Stop filling every bit of space.

I am a squeezer-in of one more thing. I can’t help this automatic habit of trying to maximise. An unscheduled afternoon? Great, what can we squeeze in? A free hour? Excellent, what can I tick off?

But summer has reminded me that not every gap needs filling. My triplets can’t cope with that much stimulation in the heat, and nor can I for that matter.

Some of our best moments have happened when there was absolutely nothing planned. When the boys have had to make their own fun. When I’ve sat in the garden instead of tackling another job. It felt a bit unproductive at first, but maybe that’s actually the point. Mamas cannot be productive 24/7.

Get really honest with yourself, Mama

Before we get caught up in all the work of getting prepared for the back to school September rush, I want you to get really honest with yourself and ask yourself:

• What has summer been telling you you need to stop.

• What do you need less of in your life?

• What is draining you, maybe even bleeding you dry?

Remember, the most useful thing you can take from summer isn’t what you did. It’s what you’re ready to stop doing.

About me: I’m Leila, triplet mum, TEDx speaker and founder of the F*** Mum Guilt Movement. This is a space for questioning the bullshit, rebelling against impossible expectations and making motherhood a happier place to be. Subscribe for a weekly dose of mama empowerment.

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So this year, we went camping (ahem: glamping). 2 families. 5 boys 5 and under, and it was magical.

Sure it was challenging in parts, and the boys were having so much fun with the big kids that they pretty much went to bed when we did and were ratty and emotional the next day.

But spending a few days in a field, away from all the usual trappings of modern family life (like electricity), made me realise how much we’ve overcomplicated parenting.

5 modern-day parenting fails

1, Kids (and adults for that matter) do not need constant stimulation or entertaining.

Kids are perfectly capable of making their own entertainment. Put a bunch of kids in a field, all different ages and backgrounds, some even speaking different languages, and pretty soon they’ll be making friends, kicking a ball about, riding bikes together and inviting each other to their birthday parties. Fact.

2, Kids need freedom to grow.

The youngest in our group was just 3 years old, and the absolute highlight of the whole trip was the look on his face when he rode a pedal bike for the first time, then pedalled non-stop around the field on a dirt track through long grass for the next 20 minutes. To him, it was Everest, more than that, the biggest, wildest adventure imaginable. He was a champion.

Rafa and Jerry went “hunting” for blackberries with the big kids in the thorny thicket and felt extremely grown up, and possibly ready for some kind of ITV survival show.

It’s much easier to give them this confidence-boosting freedom in a contained environment. And watching them reminded me how much they gain when we give them the space to figure things out without us.

3, Instant gratification isn’t doing any of us any favours.

I get it, I’m impatient and when we’ve all got so much on our mum to-do lists, faster = better. Or so it seems. Camping is the antidote to instant gratification culture.

Fancy a coffee? Great, let me just fetch the water, light the fire and make that for you. I may be a little longer than a Nespresso machine. But who wants a Nespresso when you can have this rich, slow ceremonial process.

Left your favourite toy in the car and didn’t realise until bedtime? No problem, let me just hike over the next field with a head torch and get it for you.

Need a wee? Now? Seriously?

4, We all need to slow the f*** down.

We’re a very active family and I cannot resist the urge to squeeze one more thing in but camping was a reminder that we cannot regulate when we’re rushing. We need nature to slow us down, to sit and watch the sunset because there is literally nothing else to do.

5, We have too much stuff.

Camping is basic. I’m talking Maslow’s hierarchy basic: shelter, warmth, food. I actually took a bag of activities and games for the kids. They didn’t even open it.

Since we’ve come back, I’ve been decluttering our house like a woman possessed.

Our bedroom now looks calm, rather than a dumping ground for the stuff we unpacked when we moved, then didn’t know what to do with. I’ve cleared out all the toys and books that are too young for my triplets now - and as a bonus I left them outside my house with a “please take” sign and have now met some lovely young families in the area. I’m working up to tackling their clothes… but James filled the van and drove to the tip today and honestly, the energy in the house feels lighter.

Camping stripped things back to basics. And weirdly, parenting got easier.

The mental load was lighter when there wasn’t so much stuff, so much choice, so much planning and so much pressure to keep everyone entertained.

And my kids loved it so much that when I pointed out we couldn’t stay any longer because we’d run out of clean shorts, they came up with a solution:

Go home. Do the washing. Come straight back.

I must admit, I did google a few other campsites on the way home.

What do you think we’ve overcomplicated about modern parenting?

I write unapologetically about triplet motherhood, mindset and breaking up with mum guilt. If you’d like a shot of that every week, subscribe below.

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Before I had kids, I’d read an article about a woman who travelled around Italy on mat leave. She made it sound so easy. A few quick hacks was all there was to it. This is what seeded my unhealthy travel expectation.

Next up all my husband’s colleagues went on exotic trips, like backpacking around South America, on paternity leave. He told me that the first question anyone would ask when he got back from paternity leave would be “Where did you go?” (which I though was a bit off - why not ask about the babies or fatherhood?)

We used to love travel. I was raised on super cheap flights to Europe and wanted to taste all of it I could. Both my husband and myself have lived and worked abroad. So, although daunted, I was keen to give it a go. So I asked around for advice from other mums.

“I’d rather stand in my kitchen and burn money,” was the advice I got from another mum in the twin and triplet WhatsApp.

Surely, it couldn’t be that bad.

It turns out, I needed to learn the hard way.

Last year, we went on an expensive, all-inclusive holiday at a resort with lots of sports activities. TBH big resort holiday are not my thing, and but I was persuaded by the kids’ club (free childcare) and the fact everyone else raved about them.

Here’s how it went down.

1. They would only let us book one travel cot per room so in order to get 3 travel cots we had to pay for 3 double rooms!

2. The rooms were not at all baby-proof so we ended up using aires and bits of furniture to block access to the balcony, which the triplets would have had no problem climbing off of!

3. Dinner was served after the then 3 year-old’s bedtime. Rafa fell asleep in his soup on the first night so we just had peanut butter sandwiches in the room after that. What a waste of going all inclusive.

4. The boys discovered they could turn the lights back on from the low bedside sockets. Our workaround? Remove the key card and sit in the dark in what James called “the prison cell” from 7pm.

5. We all got D&V - so bad I felt like I’d set up a make-shift field hospital. I vividly remember lifting Rafa over Jerry to be sick in the bathroom, not quite making it and a Jerry getting a sick shower. Word from the wise: do not eat the salad at the hotel buffet. Ever. There was no available doctor - we were told we could get a taxi to another town, but that didn’t seem fair on the taxi driver who would be cleaning up after us. The kids got excluded from the kids’ club and we just spent the week vomiting in our room.

(pic: Me trying to push a double buggy in one hand and a single in the other for a sunset stroll because we couldn’t fly with our oversize triple pram)

The whole sorry situation ended with Rafa being violently sick all over me and the poor lady in front on the coach back to the airport. After getting shouted at by the coach driver, I stripped in the airport toilet and tried to Wet Wipe myself clean. Nothing gets rid of the smell though. The sick had got in my hair, in my bra, in my socks.

If we needed one more message from the universe to stay home, this was it. Or so I thought.

Bleary-eyed, and weak, back at Gatwick we got a bus to the carpark. When it came to our stop, we were so worried about safely holding the triplets and getting them all down onto the road without running off we left a bag on the bus, with the car keys and James’ insulin in. I managed to flag down the bus, James retrieved the keys and we laughed the whole sorry business off. Vowing to give it time before we tried it.

We get sold the myth of the perfect family holiday.

Sunsets, good times, happy kids in matching outfits. But here’s the truth:

Kids get sick.
They scream on the plane.
They fight.
They lose their minds in buffets.
They throw up on the transfer coach.

That’s just reality. And if we go in expecting perfection, we set ourselves up for disappointment, and resentment. Then the mum guilt piles in too.

As I write this, I’m preparing to go camping with my kids. Of course I’m romanticising about singing songs and toasting marshmallows by the fire, but the reality is it’s bound to have challenging moments. Someone will want a wee in the middle of the night. I will forget to pack something vital. The kids stay up too late and be overtired and emotional the next day. But if we can tip the balance so those things stay in the minority, that will be a major success.

I write about real triplet motherhood, how to ditch mum guilt and how to enjoy this crazy ride. Subscribe for a weekly shot of mama empowerment.

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It’s only been a week, and I already feel like I’ve run a marathon when I’m barely one mile in.

I start hyperventilating when I look at all the blank space in the calendar for the rest of the month. Many of us go into the summer holidays with our batteries already flat. We’re the ones that need a break, but instead of that we’ve got long days where school/nursery is closed and all of the usual activities that break up the week are off too. And is it just me, or does the generally scant village get even scanter in the summer?

So by 9am we’re already in the park, wondering how we’re going to make it to 7pm.

Here’s my morning:

5:30am “Mummy, my plaster came off in the night. I need another one right now,” from an indignant Jerry milking the graze he got on his elbow yesterday.

6:30am “Mummy, Rafa is playing Break Your Neck” (a “game” that involves sliding down the stairs head first) and sometimes ends in calls to 111.

7:45am “Mummy, my poo came too quickly.” I clean up, bark at everyone to wash their face and clean their teeth then chase them around the house with T-shirts and shorts.

7:55am “MUMMY, I need a new T-shirt, Frankie weed on me.” FFS!

8am I head out of the house with a dog clipped around my waist and 3 unruly 4-year-olds who definitely haven’t brushed their teeth or hair, which now looks pretty horrific after I gave them DIY chops yesterday.

9am We’ve had babycinnos (and a cortado for me), done our shopping and are in the only local park we haven’t been to so far this holiday and I’m wondering how the hell we’re going to make it until bedtime. I actually formed a mini support group on a bench for the other mums and dads feeling the same. There were a lot of sympathetic nods amongst the screams not to jump off the slide or come and put some more suncream on.

Here’s what nobody says: summer holidays are hard work.

I’ve got the noise of three four-year-olds all vying for my attention and shouting over each other. I’ve got the additional work they seem to create (as if the standard stuff wasn’t enough), the constant cooking and feeding, and of course the fight-breaking up and plaster applying. Honestly, they even fought each other with olive branches the other day. Oh the irony. But it’s not just them, I’ve noticed my mum rage has ratcheted up a notch and I don’t like it.

Yet, social media would have you believe everyone else’s summer looks like a glossy ad for a 5-star holiday resort. It’s BS. Plus there’s the added pressure to “make magical memories” and the clock is ticking as “You’ve only got 18 summers”. Then there’s the spending. One mum told me yesterday that taking the kids to the cinema and dinner was as expensive as a weekend break!

Summer has its own brand of mum guilt.

The Guilt Gap is the space between our expectations of motherhood and our reality. It’s where mum guilt thrives. We hold onto a fantasy: the mum we thought we’d be, the life we thought we’d have, the summer we thought we’d be enjoying. But anchoring ourselves to that fantasy only fuels guilt, because we’re measuring ourselves against a fantasy.

Then we whip our phones out and start comparing. We look at everybody else’s happy holiday photos. Fancy days out. Elaborate play set-ups and wonder why we’re struggling to just keep on top of the laundry. And wish we’d ordered a paddling pool before they all sold out. A good mum would be on top of stuff like that.

We might even start to doubt our own summer decisions. For example we’ve decided not to go abroad this year. Instead, on Sunday, we’re going camping in a field about 20 minutes up the road for 3 nights.

When I see the smily family selfies on the plane or round the hotel pool, I feel a pang of “maybe we should have…” “they are doing it better,” but they are not me.

Camping will be fun, cheap and it’s all I can handle right now. Plus, these are the kinds of memories that I want to make. My mum and aunties still reminisce about the camping trips they went on as kids. My brother and I never get together to relive the standard package holidays and naff hotel bands we experienced as kids.

So if your summer is not looking like a postcard right now, I see you. If you can’t face the big days out our trips abroad, I see you. And, if you need some solidarity, I’m right here in the park with you.

I write honestly about mum guilt, the daily chaos of triplet mum life, and how I stay sane. Subscribe below to hang out:

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I’m raising my tea in recognition of all you’ve juggled, all the packed lunches, PE kits and World Book Day costumes you’ve magicked up out of thin air. All the school uniform and general washing you’ve done to keep everyone in clean pants up to this point. All the dinners cooked and beds made. All of it. It’s ben a lot.

By the time we get to the end of term, it’s not just the kids who are worn out, we are too. We have silently and invisibly made it all happen all year.

Permission to pause and reflect

Maybe the past six months haven’t been about smashing goals.

Maybe it’s just been hanging on in there, which is sometimes the biggest achievement of them all.

But, I bet there are things you’ve done this year that are worth stopping to acknowledge.

Because mums are great at running, doing, planning, grinding on. We’re not so great at stopping to say: “Wow, I’ve made it this far, and that’s no small feat.” Instead mum guilt is more likely to pipe up and say, “Pah, is that all you’ve done.”

So let’s put it in it’s place right now and honour ourselves. I mean imagine if we made an infographic of all the things we’ve actually done in 6 months. It has potential to break the internet!

First, get in the zone

Find 5 quiet minutes today. Put your phone on silent. Close the door if you can. Play a song that makes you feel calm.

Now… Reflect With These 3 Questions:

✔️ What’s one thing you’re proud of from the past six months? (This could be anything at work, with your kids, a decision you’ve made for yourself or an action you took)

✔️ What’s been your bravest moment? (Big or small, it all counts. It could be finally having that conversation you’ve been putting off).

✔️ Find a photo of your family from the last 6 months that makes you smile? (Use it as your screen saver, or print it out and pin in on your fridge and remind yourself why you’re doing all of this.)

A mid-year motivator

I set myself a goal in January of sorting my book this year. By May, I hadn’t written a thing. I looked at the calendar, realised that if I didn’t do it soon it would be pushed to September.

So, I’ve been working flat out on my chapters over the last few weeks. I was up at 5:30am on Monday. Timing and conditions will never be perfect but I want to make progress in the right direction.

What promise did you make yourself back in January?

Not the goals you thought you should have.

The ones that made you feel excited. The things that used to fill your cup before motherhood took over.

Back at the beginning of the year, we all got together for a F*** Mum Guilt community event. We did a quick meditation to reconnect with the things that used to fill our cup before we had children, then had a good chat about how we were going to stop another year going by without any of them happening.

If you did this exercise with us back in January, think of this as your six-month check-in.

If you’re new here, welcome.

Either way, I hope it reminds you that the woman you were before motherhood hasn’t disappeared. She’s still there. She deserves more air time in the second half of this year.

Give yourself a few minutes, put this on and feel the good vibes come in.

I’d love to know what comes up for you.

Share this with a mum who deserves her own salute.

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Plus the extra pressure of trying to meet all my deadlines and schedule all my meetings before Friday.

Sometimes the anticipation is worse than the reality.

But right now, I’m feeling pretty close to a panic attack.

(Pic: the triplets posing at their leavers’ party. The best part of this party was when we all sat in a circle and each child said what they wanted to be when they grow up. One girl said, “Dolly Parton”. )

There’s so much about summer that’s out of our control

• The sibling fights. (Last week, my mum, who taught Early Years in Croydon schools for decades, was in tears and shouted “I just want to be on my own” after just 3 nights staying with us. Welcome to my life, Mum)

• The failed expensive days out.

• The comparison trap - the sickening photos that will clog up our feeds and make us feel like failures.

• The heatwaves that prevent all emotional regulation (adults and children alike).

But here’s what we can control: our energy. Our mindset. Our thermostat.

Summer isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. So let’s pace ourselves like athletes.

1. Eat. And drink water.
Sounds basic, but I skipped lunch today after packing everyone else’s and only realised when I was shaky and short-tempered. (Coffee ≠ food.)

2. Build in micro-breaks
As soon as the boys are down for the evening, I put an audiobook on my phone for them, clip the lead on the dog and go for a walk. Sometimes I go for a longer walk to the beach, sometimes I want to put some tunes on and run, but sometimes I literally just enjoy the 10 minutes of silence as we walk around the block. These 10 minutes cleanse the stress of the day.

3. Compassion > comparison.
We can turn to the third step of breaking up with mum guilt and choose compassion over comparison. Yes, there will be sickening holiday photos on your feed. Mums that look unfeasibly good in bikinis. Wholesome family photos. But my last holiday was hell. No one films the looks everyone on the plane shoots you when your kids scream with earache.

Bonus tip: Keep it simple.
Best moments so far? My boys had hours of fun this afternoon running around the garden naked, squirting themselves and the plants with cheap water pistols. You’d think it’d get old, but it doesn’t. I haven’t even invested in a paddling pool yet – I’m saving that for when things get desperate.

The expectations on mums over the summer are unfair.

We’re supposed to be able to just pull it all out of Mary Poppins’ bag and serve up a summer of memories. Don’t even get me started on the whole “You’ve only got 18 summers” rhetoric.

Summer doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs you to be fuelled enough to laugh, recover after the hard moments (which will surely come) and keep your patience and sense of humour for tomorrow.

The single most important thing you can do is look after your own energy. Keep your inner thermostat under control. We’ve got an ultramarathon ahead of us, mamas, and we don’t want to blow out before we get to the second mile.

If this resonated, please forward it to another mum who might need it today and subscribe for a weekly shot of mama empowerment (you might need it over this summer holidays)

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I’m struggling.

I don’t generally moan about how hard being a triplet mum is because I’m so grateful to have healthy boys after the journey we’ve all been on. But, honestly, 3 x 3-year-olds + a heatwave = mama on the edge.

(Photo of me sighing out, looking hot and DONE)

They are going through a particularly testing stage where they’re answering back, saying mean things, even hitting me sometimes. They are louder than ever, all shouting over each other, or all doing increasingly stupid things for my attention, and it’s a LOT.

On Sunday, the bedtime routine took 2 hours (and 2 fans). I was crying well before those two hours were up. They were wild. There is something in that phrase “Mad dogs and Englishmen”. Well, I have three mad English hot puppies, and they were going nuts.

At an absolute low point, one pooed on the carpet in protest.

Motherhood has been tough recently.

I didn’t even manage to write to you last week, and I’m sorry about that. When I was breastfeeding, I remember saying they were literally taking every drop of my energy, and it still feels like that tbh.

The hardest thing about Sunday evening is it had been such a lovely day. I’d been at a yoga and painting workshop in my friend’s garden. I’d come back feeling my heart was open and happy. I’d felt so content quietly sat around a table with the other women painting. I didn’t know most of them, we weren’t talking much but we were relaxed. For those hours, I didn’t have to plan, fire-fight, feed or referee anyone. I could just be me.

I was just being.

Then I came home and almost immediately found myself back in survival mode.

Three hot, tired triplets. Dinner. Bedtime. The constant noise, demands and decisions.

It felt like I’d stepped out of one world and straight back into another.

And it made me wonder how many of us are spending so much time in survival mode that we don’t even notice it until we get the rare chance to escape it for a few hours.

Have we become so accustomed to survival mode that we’ve started mistaking it for normal life?

Has survival mode become normal life?

A new report The Motherhood Index just proved what I’ve been saying here for weeks - mum stress has become wallpaper. 93% of us experience burnout with 58% experiencing it “often or most days”.

This is a crisis hiding in plain sight.

We can’t even see it because the very same report found that most mums (61%) rate their own wellbeing as “good”.

I’ve said it before, Mama, we are not fine. We’re not coping nearly as well as we’ve convinced ourselves we are. We are stretched to our absolute limit with the mental load, the planning, the organising, the risk-reducing, the juggle, the knowing we’re going to drop a ball because we’re so exhausted and worrying about which one it’ll be.

In fact, our “Mum jugs” are so dangerously full, we’re so close to what our brains and body can actually handle, that it only takes one extra thing, like something completely out of our control - a heatwave, and we’re in tears.

• Have you noticed yourself slipping into survival mode today?

• Is it just how we have to function?

If motherhood has started to feel more like survival than living, you’re not alone.

Subscribe below for honest conversations about mum guilt, mental load and maternal wellbeing from a overheating triplet mama who will tell it like it is.

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Instead of going for a run, I sat on the bench in our front garden and cried.

It had been a long, wet afternoon. Jerry and Frankie have just learned how to ride pedal bikes so they had their helmets on, waiting by the back door all afternoon for the rain to stop. They were literally like puppies looking longingly at the door handle. I tried to distract them with stories and Play-Doh, but there’s only so much of that active boys will take before they get destructive.

That’s what was going on in my physical plane. In my mental plane, I’d mindlessly checked my emails and got a very scary, threatening one that I hadn’t had time to read properly, let alone process that had racked my stress and fear levels up and up. Dealing with both planes, and flipping from one to the other was exhausting.

Then it all kicked off at dinner time.

It was one of those situations (which I think you’ll recognise) where asking another adult for help actually results in more work than if you’d have just done the damn thing yourself. Plus, you have to deal with the incredulity of the other adult, seemingly not knowing how to do something you do multiple times a day. I’m not proud to say I snapped at James, then walked out the front door, sat on the bench and sobbed, hoping my neighbours wouldn’t see.

(Pic: Me holding Jerry with Frankie and Rafa in the background)

When the little things pile up

That doesn’t sound like enough to break a pretty capable mama on a Monday afternoon, but like I said the other week, it’s not the straw that breaks the donkey’s back, but the millions of unprocessed straws Mama Donkey has been carrying as she’s climbed up Mount Motherhood every single day. There’s hardly anyone offering to carry some of those straws for us, but plenty who want to pile on more. So on we go, ever upward, pushing harder and harder until we hit a moment where it all gets too much.

So please, one donkey to another, give yourself that circuit breaker, take those regular 10-minutes for yourself so you don’t end up snapping and crying on a bench. But also, if you find yourself there, show yourself some compassion. We’re dealing with a phenomenal challenge here, day after day, it’s going to take it’s toll.

How heavy are those straws feeling for you right now, Mama?

If this hit a nerve, you’re not alone.

I write about mum guilt, the mental load, and what it really looks like to stop putting yourself last.

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If you want to elbow some space for you into the next 6 months, hit play 🎙️

Bonus: if you’re finding it hard to really connect with or remember what used to make you feel like you, here’s a quick meditation to get you going.

“Whhhhyyyy?

Because you’ve just spat your drink on the floor and your brother is dripping his all over the table with his straw.”

Was it the straw that broke this mummy’s back?

The day had started well. We had guests over for the bank holiday, but, due to lack of a spare room, one was on the sofa and another was at the local hotel. We joined him there for an al fresco breakfast overlooking the beach. The boys were wearing some smart shirts I got at the church sale for 50p each. It could have worked out. It could have been fun even.

(Pic: the whole family, looking smart, on our way to breakfast. Blissfully unaware of what was to follow)

But I hadn’t factored in their complete inability to wait for food to be cooked, sheer outrage that other people were eating when they weren’t, and then as the sun rose higher so did their tempers.

By the time breakfast was over, they had taken their shirts off and were all demanding to be carried. Rafa did a few of those dramatic falls where a toddler swoons in slow motion, then pretends it is impossible to get up and instead blocks a busy pavement.

I tried just breathing through it, but honestly I needed a coffee. Plus we thought getting them inside could help. But alas that ended in straw-gate.

On the abortive walk back up the hill home they were all hot, grumpy, emotional, tired and wanted to be carried. The whining was like a background drone, constant but surging in waves. Then my husband, James, and I started snapping at each other, and tbh I was pretty close to tears by the time I prised a sweaty boy off me, having lugged him up the hill whilst holding another’s hand.

Half term will do this to you.

You’ll try to pull things off you’d never normally consider and expect them to work. Big outings. Late meals. Hot children. Broken routines. “Making memories.” In fact, we nearly booked a trip to France this half-term, but the thought of it made me so anxious, we ditched it. The packing. Six hours in a van. Still doing all the normal mum jobs once we got there. Cooking. Washing. Sorting snacks. Managing moods.

I realised I didn’t actually want a holiday. I wanted a break.

Pinch points

In the talk I gave for Joeli Brearley, about the mum guilt-free return to work, I spoke about pinch points. These are times in our year when either things at work or at home are intense. Half-term is a classic pinch point.

Resources are down. Capacity is down. Expectations need to go down too. Mum guilt thrives in the gap between reality and expectation. Trust me mama, trying to maintain normal standards during abnormal pressure is a recipe for disaster.

Schools and preschools are closed.

All the usual kids’ activities are off.

Normal routine is out the window.

We’ve got kids to feed (I’ve honestly lost count of the snacks) and entertain all day long.

Oh and this time we’ve got a heatwave.

Personally, that’s a recipe for hot, cranky kids that won’t sleep. If anyone knows how to handle overheating three-year-olds please dm me.

Mums don’t come with built-in circuit breakers

(Pic: Rafa on my lap holding a green pipe cleaner, Jerry clutching “Foxy” next to me)

We are expected to put up with surge after surge of stress without a circuit-breaker. We never get a chance to shed the stress load and reset. It’s not the straw that breaks us. It’s the thousands of tiny unprocessed moments before it.

So give yourself that circuit-breaker. Don’t wait for anyone else to hand it to you on a plate because honestly, they won’t.

What difference will 10 minutes make?

When my triplets were tiny and I was flat out, an American friend who had a two-year-old looked me in the eye and said, “What difference will 10 minutes make?”

I blinked, not understanding. I explained all the work I needed to get done in naptime before the babies woke, pump, sterilise bottles, empty the dishwasher, unload the laundry etc.

“Yeah, so what difference would it really make if you just spent 10 minutes sitting in the garden before you did all that?”

She was right. The to-do list was perpetual. I was pinned down by it, no matter how hard I grappled with it, I’d never end up on top. But 10 minutes alone, sitting in the garden in peace could really change how I felt, and how I experienced that morning.

It gave me a moment to feel like a person instead of a walking task list. Someone just about functioning, getting the next thing done, then the next, then the next.

Give yourself 10 minutes

Last night, after I put the boys to bed, I walked resolutely through the messy kitchen, choosing to ignore the noise coming from their bedroom, straight out into the garden.

I did not tidy up the toys strewn all over the lawn. I resisted the urge to pair the shoes kicked off in the vicinity of the door. I did not even get the washing in.

I just watched the golden sunlight, noticed the colours of the flowers I’d seen all day but didn’t really notice. I listened to the seagulls hoping to get lucky with a bank holiday BBQ. I even crept into my hammock. This involved a short battle with mum guilt who wanted to know why I hadn’t cleaned the kitchen or washed the day’s sandy swimwear yet.

After a day of constant noise, demands and physical touch, the quiet felt medicinal. Restorative. Humanising maybe.

It was a perfect 10-minutes before a nappy-clad Jerry, who should have been fast asleep in his own bed crept in with me.

10 minutes will be over in a flash, so take it and enjoy it.

During pinch points, rest isn’t indulgent. It’s the circuit breaker that stops us completely short-circuiting. No one wants to see Mama blow.

If I gave you ten minutes of quiet alone time, what would you do? Let me know in the comments.

I write no-holds-barred about triplet mum life and breaking up with mum guilt. Hit subscribe to join us and be part of this conversation and movement.

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This image stayed with me, somewhere in the back of my mind.

And now I am a mother, I keep thinking about that jug.

I worry about how many of us are doing motherhood with that jug dangerously close to the top. Mainly because of what everyone else is pouring into it.

Imagine layers, like a deadly trifle. At the bottom: the relentless logistics. Cooking, laundry, cleaning, life admin, the load.

Then the emotional and physical needs of our children. The carrying, soothing, organising, anticipating.

Then work. Or whatever we’re trying to build, hold together or become.

And finally, balanced precariously on the top, the tiny sliver left for us: our hopes, dreams, passions.

They all take up space.

Pic: Frankie dressed as a mermaid with pink denim jacket (I’m not going to defend my 3 year old’s right to sparkly joy), Rafa as a skater boy and Jerry looking preppy trying to ditch the jacket as we walk back home.

The scary part? Nothing stressful had even happened

The other day I went to a yoga class that had a sound bath at the end. For those of you who haven’t tried it, it’s basically lying down on yoga mats whilst someone makes music from different percussion and crystal bowls. The frequency of the sound they create dominates the room and your body - you can physically feel sound. A bit like when you’re standing too close to the speakers at a rave and can feel the bass. It’s mind-blowing and incredibly relaxing. I checked my Garmin when I left, so soporific I was worried how I’d drive home. My stress levels had dropped by 70% in an 60 minutes.

That’s not the shocking part, the bit I couldn’t get my head around was that it hadn’t been a particularly stressful day. Sure, looking after three cocky, boisterous three-year-olds isn’t easy, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.

And that’s the point. Mums are so used to high levels of stress, we’ve normalised them to the point they are like wallpaper. I don’t even particularly notice it. But my sports watch is there all the time measuring my variable heart rate. It don’t lie.

For it even to be possible to have a 70% drop, I must have been pretty close to that jug being full before I walked into that class. And I didn’t even realise it.

Could we be sleep-walking into maternal breakdowns?

When stress stops feeling like stress and just feels like life

I’ve started reading up on motherhood and chronic stress - not the reactive spikes e.g. when Jerry stepped into the road without looking last week and a black Fiesta slammed on the breaks - but that constant background stress.

If you were totally honest right now, what do you think your background level would be?

Here’s an idea. What if you monitored it for a few days? Do you think it would stay constant or dip? Would it be different on a day in the office or a day at home with the kids? Which would be more stressful?

As I type, my husband has just got back from a long commute and a day in the office but honestly, if you’d seen my boys going feral in the library this morning. And the Olympic-level negotiation required to get coats and wellies back on without any public property being destroyed, you’d have no doubt which one of us had the more stressful day.

I’m going to be going deeper into how mums can look after their nervous systems over the next few weeks, but for now, here are things I’m doing when I notice my stress levels ramp up.

Stopping my stress spirals

During a terrible morning last week, in which I’d already barked “clean your teeth” and “put your shoes on” so many times it had become completely futile, I walked away. We were going to be late anyway. I did a few yoga stretches, and came back calmer, with the mental strength to get through the rest of getting them in the van.

Mid-behaviour battles, I’ve also started singing or humming. The boys were all tired and demanding to be carried as we walked home from town today. Whining every step of the way. Until I started singing the colours of the rainbow. Then everyone joined in, we were kind of singing in rounds because everyone just started when they liked but we were soon home.

When they were babies, I used to sing to them constantly. Even in NICU, I would hold them and sing “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley. Looking back, I think I was trying to convince myself that “every little thing is gonna be alright” more than them.

But in all cases, when I interrupt my own stress response and calm myself first, they can then come down to my levels instead of me shooting up to theirs. You don’t want toddlers driving that bus!

How full is your jug right now?

Do you think motherhood has normalised stress levels that would once have felt like serious red flags?

Tell me in the comments. I have a feeling a lot of us are carrying far more than we realise.

I write raw about motherhood and mum guilt. I’m not afraid to write it as I see it. Subscribe for more.

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The Motherhood Movie Trailer

FADE IN. A mum, with a great body wrapped in matching athleisure wear, jogs with a sleek pram down a sunlit street. CUT TO a bustling café: laughter ripples, babies squeal, and the camera zooms in on her, laughing with her mum friends, sipping her latte whilst it’s still hot. CUT TO a bathroom scene in which she wraps her cute baby in fluffy towel, puts on his pyjamas and lays him down in his cot. He falls asleep instantly. MONTAGE of her evening: meditation, yoga, healthy eating, and a wholesome early night with a book

Now, FADE IN again: me, slumped in an armchair, pumping, unsure if it’s day or night. So dangerously fatigued I am beginning to doubt if I’m fit to be a mother. ZOOM TO THE COT IN THE CORNER: The babies cry endlessly. I walk over and do my best to pick them up one at a time. I make up bottles as fast as I can but it’s no use. They keep crying, and then so do I. I can’t remember my last meal, or shower, or the last time a friend came over. MONTAGE of the rest of the day: feeding, winding, changing nappies, sterilising bottles, getting sloppier and sloppier as the day goes on. By the end of the day, the kitchen is covered in a thin, sticky film of SMA powder, the laundry basket is overflowing, the dishes have piled up in the sink, and there’s no food in the fridge but biscuit and chocolate wrappers are scattered all over the sofa.

Which motherhood trailer did you watch?

Other Mothers

When my triplets were tiny, I barely had time to go online. And whenever I did, nothing about the mainstream motherhood narrative resonated. Not the tone in baby product marketing. Not the glossy magazine imagery. Not the match-matchy curated reality on social media. Even triplet mums were managing to stage perfect photos with matching outfits. Even if we started the day matching, bodily fluids would end up on at least one outfit within hours.

I was deep in the comparison trap. I was having an “other” motherhood. A mixed-race triplet mum with undiagnosed PTSD, just trying to survive the day without killing her husband. My reality wasn’t reflected back to me anywhere.

Eventually, I opened up. Maybe it was fuelled by maternal rage but so many of us are having “other” motherhoods.

At the time, I thought it was just me struggling with dark thoughts, who didn’t have a circle of mum friends, who didn’t have that village.

Now I know that many of us for a multitude of reasons, are excluded from this very narrow mainstream narrative of what motherhood “should” be and look like.

I know that in this amazing F*** Mum Guilt community, there are mums of multiples, single mums, breadwinner mums, stay at home mums, mums of children with severe health problems, mums struggling financially. Mums who struggled with mental health, mums who struggled with physical health and a hell of a lot of mums with no village. Mums who don’t fit that mainstream narrative, and if we’re honest totally disprove it.

I believe there are way more of us “other” mothers than the regular, perfect ones. If you don’t know who I’m talking about - rewatch the trailer at the top of this article.

If there are so many of us, why are we so silent?

In a word: mum judgement - that nasty, bitchy fuel that ignites mum guilt.

Bupa found that nearly two-thirds of mums have driven themselves to exhaustion trying to be a “supermum”. And a third had sought help for mental health struggles but kept it secret from loved ones.

That really hit me because it says everything about modern motherhood.

We are struggling, but pretending we’re fine because we’re scared of the judgement we’re opening ourselves up to.

And I’ll be real, it still exists in some corners. I’ve had it in mum WhatsApp groups, and I’ve been trolled online. So I can’t pretend it’s not there. But honestly, it’s the minority.

Badges on board

Last week I shared my idea of badges that have “mum guilt on board” “, PTSD on board” “Anxiety on Board”, and it’s gone wild, particularly on Instagram. Mums have shared it in other languages and mums have commented:

“THIS 👏🏾👏🏾 I’ll order immediately!!”

“I’ll take one of each”

I had a dream that mums would open up, wear these badges and share their truth, and guess what, mums are up for it. We’re done wearing the mask.

Throughout Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week we’ve seen brave celebrities (I’m looking at you Kimberly Nixon), GPs, Mental Health Professionals and mums from all walks of life putting their hands up and saying I struggled. My motherhood didn’t look like that movie trailer version. It was dark. It was frightening. It was hard.

They’ve shown incredible bravery and have been shown compassion, empathy, and love. Yes, I’ll go that far.

The perfect motherhood movie was always fiction.

Real motherhood is messier. Harder. Uglier. Much more diverse than that.

So although the awareness week may be over, we must keep sharing our truths to break the shame, save lives and collectively create a new “trailer” for motherhood.

Because the “other” mothers are not the exception.

We are the majority.

What if the women you think are coping perfectly are waiting for someone else to speak first?

I write for mums who are DONE with mum guilt, perfectionism and the “supermum” myth. Come join us…

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